Spirit Lights
by bayesiandragon
Summary: An adolescent girl is the victim of her temper once more, and finds herself in a Forest of Eternal Darkness. Who will she meet? And what will she do when the Guardians approach? Fem!Harry, Tom Riddle. AU Oneshot.


The first time she saw him, she was reminded of the tales the Songmaster would cant for her, the ones with the hollow spaces behind the stars and the shadow-winds that bore fair maidens away to those lightless lands. He was standing in the eternal gloom of the Forbidden Forest, his pale form swathed in robes like liquid night.

As she gathered the herbs that the Medicine Man needed to brew healing water, it seemed the boy's gaze was searing through her vestments, through her skin, and through her flesh to lay judgement upon her soul. With every moment of oppressive silence that stretched by, she felt as if he was deeming what he saw to be more and more unworthy, until, finally, she simply could not bear it anymore.

"I don't even know your name, and you're watching my every move!" she snapped out, her head turning to the side and her eyes flicking upwards to meet his. She froze. His eyes were dark, unnaturally dark, darker than his cloak, and darker than darkness itself, as if the pupils had eaten up the irises as an appetizer and were now preparing to swallow her up as main course. It had seemed terrible when he was only staring at her back, but, now that they were face to face, she knew that there were far, far worse things.

"There are _things_ in the Forest, Venetia," one of the Songmaster's tales had begun. "Dark things that can take you…. Drag you down without laying a finger on you…"

The boy- no, _thing's_ \- head tilted back slightly, a single lock of charcoal-black hair slipping out of place. "My name is Corvinus Salazar Slytherin," he said, coldly. "Do you not know of the Guardians that live within these woods?".

"The shambling men," she muttered, her knuckles turning white on the basket handle. The thought of them alone was enough to send shivers down her spine, but the boy didn't even flinch. Instead, a smile like a knife's edge danced across his pale-rose lips. It made blood rush to her head, because of course he had never woken up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night, for fear of the shambling-men, and _of course_ he had never watched them rip his own parents apart in cold blood. He was probably more powerful than the Guardians if he lived in the Forest with them, and, _of course_ he didn't feel an ounce of pity for the weak, _normal_ people whose lives they plagued.

"I'm not afraid of the shambling-men!" she shouted, defiantly. Her fingernails dug into the palm of her hand, and she was sure that they were forming four little crescent marks in a line across it.

He simply raised one infuriating eyebrow at her proclamation, and, mockingly, he said, "Perhaps you are not, under the light of the midday sun-" His tone made it all too clear that he thought even that to be very unlikely. "-but I doubt you would be of the same sentiment if you were standing in their own territory." His words grated on her, and it felt as if someone was pounding on the inside of her head with a club as molten lava pulsed through her veins. Her teeth ground together.

The boy's smile widened, and he spread his arms out expansively. "Stand next to me, then, if you're bold enough to incur their wrath."

" _Please…" Lily had cried, throwing herself down on her knees. "You… you know me, and I have done….. nothing to incur your wrath…"_

 _The walking corpses had shown no sign of comprehension, and had continued their slow shuffle forward amidst her mother's horrified screams. "No, no, not Vinnie, take me instead, please!" Her mother had thrown herself in front of the crib, and there had been waxy, half-rotted fingers groping at Lily, ripping off chunks of her flesh, spraying the walls of the house with blood….._

Her vision hazed over, and, the next thing she knew she was charging across the boundary between meadow and Forest, unable to stop her body from responding to the insult, to the _challenge_. She let out a gasp as the icy Forest air hit her, and a single tear rolled down her face. "I'm here," she managed to whisper, her voice shaking as she realized what she had just done. She kept her eyes fixed on the boy's face, unwilling to look at the darkness now that it was surrounding her.

His eyes widened for a moment before he regained his composure. "The Guardians are surrounding you." She couldn't see them, but she could _hear_ their limbs dragging across the carpet of dead leaves. "I am quite certain that you are afraid."

She stumbled forward, grasping at his robes. "Please… help me…." she gasped out, her face upturned, pleadingly.

"You should have learned how to control your temper," was her only response.

As the shambling-men closed in on her, hands outstretched, she was suddenly hit by a sensation of complete and utter calm. There was no cold, no dark, no trees, no men, no sound…

 _Her mother was gone; every ripped and shredded inch of her had been devoured by the shambling men. Their mouths, hands, bodies, teeth had been stained crimson, and they had advanced on her, her mother's sacrifice meaning nothing to the unliving husks. As one had gripped her face, its ravenous mouth moving closer and closer, a song had risen from deep inside her, the words falling from her lips as if it had always been meant to be…._

"Dia liom biotáille na tine agus solas

A ithe me, sruthán amach mo dolas"

The song's melody filled her whole body, reverberating through her bones and lifting her up, up, up in a fiery ascent. She drew in a sharp breath, and her eyes fluttered open to see…..

Light.

Every inch of her skin was glowing with golden sunlight, just as it had on a sorrowful night many winters ago. The shambling-men were gone, as they could not stand the light of day, and she knew that, somehow, this was the first time there had been brightness in the Forest for centuries. She felt the tip of something hard pressing into the soft skin of her throat and her eyes slid downwards, slowly. It was a slender stick of yew wood, and it would've seemed impossibly easy to snap if it weren't for the pure power that rolled off of it in waves.

"What was that?" the boy demanded. "How did you do that?".

Her gaze shot upwards, and, too late, she realized her mistake. Once more, she was drowning in his mercilessly dark eyes, unable to escape, unable to _look away_. "They say I am blessed by the spirits of fire and light," she whispered. She wanted to leave, while she still had the chance, but her legs felt like pillars of stone, rooted to the ground for the eternity of seconds.

"You're a witch, then, albeit a mudblood," the boy murmured. His hand wrapped around her still-glowing arm, his eyes flicking ever-so-slightly towards it.

It was enough of an opportunity for her to tear her gaze away, and she ripped her arm from his grasp, stumbling backwards. Shutting her eyes, she whipped around and scrambled back out of the Forest of dark Things. "Wait!" the boy yelled, but she ignored him, racing back the way she came. Branches whipped against her skin as she tried to put as much distance between herself and the Forest as possible, until, finally, she stopped, gasping for breath.

Glancing back over her shoulder, all she could see was a blur of darkness.


End file.
